Sunday, January 26, 2014

Obamacare Update

Sign-ups continue, although
the “back room” functions are moving very slowly. Providers are
struggling with verification problems and missing insurance cards.

Other Changing Policies

A huge number of policies in
both the employer-paid sector and the individual policy sector
changed as of January 1, creating more messes for patients and
providers.

Moving individual policy
holders into the exchange system has been a nightmare and will likely
continue to be a nightmare for some time.

More Cash from Patients

The
trend of “risk shift” - less coverage from employers and more out
of pocket from patients – has been accelerated by Obamacare. This
is impacting both patients and providers, and not for the better.

This
creates numerous headaches for providers, who have enough headaches
already.

Fall will be Interesting

With
the ICD-10 adoption deadline October 1 and the EMR/EHR operational
deadline January 1, 2015 the fall season will be stressful for
providers.

Deadlines ….. don't
mean much, it is the extended deadlines that are important

And so.... 2014
may be the single most stressful year in the history of our health
care system – until 2015.